Main-street meeting 'positive'

With eight weeks of construction left in Balclutha's $3.2million main street upgrade, Clutha Mayor Bryan Cadogan met retailers affected by the ongoing work this week.

Mr Cadogan, Clutha District Council staff, Fulton Hogan's contract manager and a landscape architect met up to 50 people representing main street retailers at the Hotel South Otago on Thursday evening to provide an update on the work programme and to field questions and concerns.

''I didn't quite know what to expect. There's been angst and we acknowledge that we've contributed to what's been a difficult winter,'' Mr Cadogan said.

However, the Mayor called the 90-minute meeting ''absolutely positive'' and said it was the largest gathering of Balclutha retailers he could recall.

''It was great to get all the retailers together and to get that reassurance that they're operating under difficult circumstances, but they're operating with their chin up.''

The council's district asset manager, Jules Witt, said the work in Clyde St was more than halfway complete.

''Now that a lot of the underground work's completed, the visible things will be starting to happen and some reasonable changes in terms of what it looks like are starting to happen now and will accelerate over the next two months,'' Mr Witt said.

He said in about two weeks, trees would begin to be installed on Clyde St, the footpaths would begin to be resurfaced and planters would be installed.

Mr Cadogan noted yesterday that some at the meeting raised concerns that the town's business centre was inaccessible for some with mobility issues, and while he said the council and contractors were working to ''mitigate the very worst of it'', there were limitations on what could be done to alleviate all the retailers' concerns.

He said that for the first time since the project began in June, the contractors reported they were on schedule. The work would be completed at the end of November.

The project remained on budget.

hamish.maclean@odt.co.nz

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